


Beyond

by orphan_account



Category: Frozen (2013), Interstellar (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-18 14:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3572618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interstellar!Elsanna AU.</p>
<p>About a year after Elsa and Anna's marriage failed, Anna finds herself captaining a NASA mission through a wormhole to look for a new world for the citizens of our dying Earth to live on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Farmer

**Author's Note:**

> Seeing Interstellar is not a prerequisite to read this fic.
> 
> About 95% of the dialogue and scene structure is directly from the movie, so this fic is essentially an in-depth, femmeslash-y retelling of Interstellar with some of my own plot twists added in here and there. 
> 
> I am not taking credit for any dialogue or scene structure or character that isn't mine. Both works belong to their original creators; I am merely playing in their sandbox.

_  
"Sure, she was a farmer," A woman says. Her eyes are careworn, and she looks ahead with an intelligent delicacy and nostalgia of days gone by, "like everybody else back then. Of course, she didn't start out that way."_

* * *

"Computer says you're too tight, Freidrick." 

The radio feed in her helmet crackles to life. She can barely hear it over the howl of the engines. Anna moves her hand from the controls, to her neck to flip the volume switch up a couple of notches. The craft immediately takes another flip sideways when she does so. Damn. That really wasn't the best idea, was it, Anna? Fixing your headset during the middle of a spacecraft crash? Get your shit together. 

"Whitmore, I got this. I can-" Anna shouts, reaffirming her grip of the controls. She fixes her gaze forward, imagining herself physically reaching for the heavens above. The stars. She can tell that she's almost out of the stratosphere. Almost there... Just a few more minutes and I can save the mission. All I need to do is control the spin and- 

"Crossing the Straights... Shutting it down, Friedrick. Shutting it all down..." Whitmore's voice growls through the radio again, but this time it sounds odd. Almost... Inhuman; there's no trace of emotion in his cadence. 

"No!" Anna half-screams, "I need the power! I can get her down I sw-" All of a sudden, Anna's craft starts plummeting towards the Earth in a free fall. Anna's body jerks backward in her seat. She tries to control the drop, but her controls appear to be stuck in place. Above her, the sky has turned into the blackest of nights and the stars all have taken on a demonic red glow. 

She is falling, __

_falling,_

 _

falling...

_

* * *

Anna wakes up, sweat coating her face and body. Her breathing is erratic and heaving, making her chest pulse up and down rapidly. She swallows thickly, reaching for the cup of water she left on her bedside table last night. Anna's hands find purchase, and she quickly gulps down the refreshing liquid. This slows her heartrate down a little; it no longer feels like its about to leap out of Anna's chest. 

"Anna? Anna?" She looks to her side to find her ex-wife awake, icy blue eyes staring up at her with a concerned expression. 

"Go back to sleep, Elsa," Anna replies tiredly, remaining in a sitting position, her arms wrapped around her knees and her back slightly hunched over those knees. 

"It's just... I thought... Never mind, that's silly," The other woman mumbled to herself, not quite forming a coherent thought. 

"What's silly?" Anna asks. She knows she shouldn't keep Elsa awake for much longer; her ex-wife has work tomorrow. But, her curiosity gets the better of her and she asks anyways. Five more minutes, that's it. 

"It's nothing. Forget I said anything about Murphy's ghost. Go back to sleep." Elsa mumbles this so quickly and quietly that she almost doesn't catch the mention of a ghost. Almost. Anna wants to press more, but she decides it can wait until the morning. 

Anna lays back down, but she can't sleep. Her mind keeps wandering to the crash, and to what Elsa said, and what needs to be done on the farm. Oh hell, do things need to be done on the farm. She wasn't born for this. Anna wasn't born to be a caretaker, the supporter of other people. She's an explorer, a scientist, and engineer. Somebody meant to do something important. She supposes maybe that's what drove her and Elsa apart in the end.  

There was a time, after all, when Anna would speak of Elsa like a goddess among man, and the ex- wasn't the default prefix for wife. Anna remembers anticipating the moment her wife drove up to the farmhouse like it was Christmas. She'd jog over to Elsa and pull her in close and steal a couple kisses. She'd rub her nose with Elsa, and Elsa would respond with that glorious, melodic laugh of hers. Hans would come out of the house to help unload and then make some offhand comment about 'getting a room', and then Elsa would chastise him for using 'such vulgar language'.  

Memories like those are on the tip of Anna's lips. They used to be as vibrant as a lustful kiss, but now, they're just gossamer touches, dull grey ghosts of what they once were. Anna almost aches to feel that love again, to feel that pull towards another human soul. It pains her to remember how she once loved Elsa, and then to think how she doesn't love her at all anymore. It's a struggle everyday to wake up in the same bed with someone who now feels like a stranger.  

When they got the divorce, they decided that they'd still live together. For the kids, she remembers Elsa saying. But, when Anna signed that damn paper, she didn't know what she was really getting herself into. She didn't know that her signature came with still sleeping in the same bed, because there wasn't an extra room. She didn't know that her signature came with an undeniable tension between Elsa and herself, who used to be best friends. Above all, Anna didn't know that her signature came with so much heartbreak.  

She doesn't know why it hurts this much. They always say that the one who falls out of love is never the one that hurts.  

Anna thinks that's bullshit.  

It hurts for everyone. It hurts for the person who isn't in love anymore, but desperately trying to be. It hurts for the person who's still in love, and being heartbroken knowing that the person you love no longer loves you back.  

Maybe Anna should write a book. Elsa would approve of that.  

Elsa likes practical things. She likes tangible things. She likes attainable goals and orderly routines. Elsa based her comfort in obliviousness. Nowhere in her life was room for Anna's interstellar wanderlust. Sure, Elsa had tolerated Anna's "silly little dreams", but when she started becoming obsessive about the "weird" weather, and the crops dying out, she started cracking down on her. No more staying up all night, she had said after Anna had stayed up all week to chart the star movements. No more going out into the storms, she had said after Anna had driven the truck straight into one because the 'internal winds were strange'. No more putting your ridiculous ideals into our childrens' heads, she had said after she caught Anna telling Murphy about the Apollo missions.  

Elsa thought that Anna was too obsessive and Anna thought that Elsa just didn't understand. 

Elsa was always so complacent with her life. Her 9-5 job, her son's mediocre at best grades, the increasing dust storms and dangerous weather. Anna has never felt that way. She's a scientist, she has to find answers, know the truth. Watching her wife sit idly by was infuriating. It was like she didn't care at all.  

Soon after the dust storms got more frequent and the crops started dying off, the little arguments the two had turned into loud arguments, and then those loud arguments turned into shouting matches, which then manifested into the divorce papers Anna signed a year and a half ago. If only Anna could wind back the clock, because she would've never signed those fucking papers.  

She stays in bed for a few more moments, thinking about the past before slinking off the squeaky mattress and over to the window. She sits on the sill and looks out over the farm. Corn, corn and more corn. Seems like it's endless, these days. It was really the only thing they had left. Wheat went bad a few years ago, and potatoes the year before. Slowly, crop by crop, this blight was turning them into zombies, desperate for their next meal. Sure, they still had corn and okra, maybe a few others, but that's all they have. All anyone has. 

Small African countries were the first to go. What little places that could support crops, didn't support the right crops. People there either died or fled the continent. Most of them died. Asian countries were next. When rice was knocked out, half of the entire Asian population was knocked out. Every powerful country in the world was taken out, person by person, crop by crop until only the North American countries remained. They were the only nations that had enough diversity in climate to sustain farmlands, and what little harvest they bore. 

But, after the food blight took place, another blight happened. A halt in progression. Up until about thirty five years ago, the evolution of human creation was at its peak, and growing still. New things were being invented seemingly every day, and creative genius was at an all time high. It was the greatest output of media, technology and art since the Renaissance. It was the New Renaissance. But then, everything changed. Wars broke out, seemingly out of nowhere. Everyone was being called to arms, and money was being depleted. All that gorgeous creation was put to a halt. Instrument factories were converted into ammo producers, and specialty parts production (like parts in MRI machines), were converted into weapons testing. It's like the last hundreds of years never existed, and the world went back to killing each other over frivolous things overnight. Of course, it wasn't really like that, but that's how fifteen year old Anna saw it when her band class was replaced with military strategy. That's how she saw it when her best friend, Kristoff was shipped off to war, like half of the boys in her class. That's how she saw it when over half of them didn't return after the war. 

And now, she pays for the stupidity of the past by being a farmer. Anna has nothing against them, really, but the sheer repetitivity of it drove her absolutely mad. Plant the corn, nurture the corn, check the corn, harvest the corn, burn the corn stalks, plant the corn, nurture the corn and so on, every day, every season, every year. And if that wasn't awful enough, God decided to drop the damn dustorms on her doorstep as a thank you present. 

* * *

_"Dust. Just dust everywhere," she pauses and shudders, as if cringing at the thought of a memory. "In your ears, in your mouth, everywhere."_

* * *

Anna didn't get any sleep last night. Nightmares could hardly be considered sleeping, and she woke at daybreak, which is synonymous for work time on a farm. 

Anna sighs, tearing her gaze away from the window and to the interior of hers and her ex-wife's room. It's simple and functional, just the way Anna likes it. Bed in one corner, dresser in another and a plain, colourblocked rug on the floor. Of course, all coated with a thin veneer of dust. She walks over to the dresser and opens it as quietly as possible. Anna likes the feel of the solid wooden handle underneath her hand. The chipped paint and hand-milled wood takes her back to a time when people actually took time and effort to do their craft. Nowadays, there isn't any time or any energy for anything to get done properly at all. In Anna's opinion, all the world cares about is trying to save a lost cause, this Earth. 

"Mankind was born on Earth, it was never meant to die here," Anna mutters under her breath as she pulls on a white tshirt and a pair of jeans. Her Carhartt work jacket is slung on as she sneaks out of the bedroom as quietly as she can, with the creaky wooden floors. 

The dust is always calmest in the mornings. For once, Anna can see the sunrise perfectly as she goes to tend to the harvesters she has rigged up to an automatic system. Anna inspects each one carefully, with a gaze as meticulous as a watchmaker's and hands as dexterous and steady as a surgeon's. This machine thing, this engineering thing, she could do. In fact, this morning routine inspection is the highlight of her day. When she's working on the machines, she can almost pretend like she's back at NASA; she can almost pretend that things on Earth are okay. 

Anna spends another couple of hours tinkering before she's able to force herself to do the actual farming part of being a farmer. Her least favourite part. Anna sighs loudly, then makes her way towards the harvest storage. Inventory. Yay. 


	2. Dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kai sweeps things, Murph is wrongly accused, and the not-so-happily-married couple fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a long spell of writers block, but I churned out this lil chap in hopes of reigning in my muse again.

Kai sweeps the deck. Again. The dust last night was bad. Real bad. It somehow permeated through the minuscule space between the window frame and sill and the door and the wall. It left a musty smell throughout the entire lower story. Kai thinks it smells like death. And frankly, in a way, this house was their coffin. Kai felt like the Freidricks were living corpses, going through the motions, waiting for the dust to slowly choke them. 

And so he sweeps. And maybe, just maybe, if he sweeps enough, he can pretend that he doesn't feel his expiration date blow closer and closer. 

Anna nods to him as she passes through the front door. He notes how exhausted she looks, with deep bags under her eyes and a faint bloodshot redness around Anna's teal irises. However, her posture is still straight and tall. No matter what, that kid'll never drop her head. Ever since she was a little girl, Anna's been as stubborn as they come; she'll never back down from any threat, any person any challenge. It was both a blessing and a curse that she inherited it from her mother. 

Kai hears the kids bounding down the creaky stairs and takes it as his cue to go in. Kai sets the broom against the rickety bench on the front of the porch and pushes past the screen door. Anna's pouring herself a large cup of coffee and Elsa's putting grits on the table. She turns over the kids' face-down bowls and slops a large, steamy spoonful of the stuff into each. Elsa is rewarded with a synchronized "thank you" and the sounds of a fifteen and ten year old digging into their food messily. Kai's never cared for grits, so he politely passes when Elsa offers him a bowl. 

"'Morning," Anna says with a dip in tone. She tips her coffee mug to him, and then drinks. Kai smiles quickly, and returns with a nod. 

"Mom, can you fix this?" the youngest asks. Murphy. She's a spitting image of her Anna, with the fiery red hair and same fierceness and determined attitude. Plus, it seems as if she's inherited the intelligence of both her mothers combined. 

Anna strides over, snatching up the object in her daughter's hands. It's her shuttle model. 

"How'd you break it, kiddo?" she asks, frowning as she inspects the model. It looks like it's been dropped, but Anna wants to give Murph the chance to explain herself. 

"What did you break now, Murphy?" Elsa asks, arching a pale eyebrow from across the table. She sets her newspaper down to give the full-on "Stern Mother" effect. 

"I didn't break anything, Mother. It was-" 

"It was your ghoooooost!" Hans interrupts, food still half in his mouth. He waves his fork in a mockingly eerie fashion. Hans is fifteen and at the height of teenage arrogance. His auburn hair flops down onto his forehead, almost into his eyes and skimpy sideburns grace the sides of his jaw. He's long and lanky, not quite grown into his body quite yet. Kai guesses he'll end up toned and slender, like Elsa. Anna was more stocky and muscular at his age, still is, actually.  

"Hans..." Elsa warns, Stern Mother mode still in full force. 

Murphy ignores them both, then turns to Anna, 

"Like I said, it wasn't me! It was my ghost. It knocked it off my shelf, and some books too!" 

"Ghosts don't exist, dumbas-" Elsa shoots her son an even more stern expression. Hans falls silent, knowing that there's Hell to pay if he doesn't. 

"Anyways," Murph continues, glaring at Hans, "I looked it up, and it's called a poltergeist." 

Hans sighs loudly, rolling his eyes. Kai loved the boy, but sometimes he wanted to give him a smack upside the head.  

"Mom," he glances at Elsa and Anna, "Either one of you, tell her." 

Anna beats Elsa to the punch. She squats down so that she's level with her daughter, "Murph, you know that that isn't scientific. Ghosts aren't real." 

Murph looks into her mother's eyes with an emotion Kai can't quite comprehend from across the room, "You say science is about admitting what we don't know. You don't know that ghosts aren't real." 

Kai's had enough with being the idle bystander. He jumps into the conversation. "She's got you there, Anna." 

Anna stares into her daughter's eyes for a few moments longer, gives her a sigh and then hands Murphy back the pieces of the model, "Start looking after our stuff better." She then stands and marches over to the sink to wash out her mug.  

Elsa and Kai both give her an admonishing look. Anna sighs once again and turns back around, "Look, Murph, if you want to talk to me about science, don't tell me you're afraid of this ghost. Record your data, analyze the facts and present your conclusion." 

Murph's saddened expression turns a little brighter, "Sure, Mom." 

Anna smiles back, "Now get to school, both of you." 

After the kids scamper back up to their rooms, Kai clears his throat in Anna's direction, "Murph has a parent-teacher conference. Parent-teacher, not grandparent-teacher." 

"Elsa, can you-" 

"I have work, Anna." 

"But jus-" 

"No." 

"I'll even-" 

"No means no, Anna!" Elsa snaps, her voice laced with venom.  

Kai stands quietly to the side, knowing to not interfere. Even if Elsa wasn't his own, she still seemed like it. Picking a side with these women feels like picking a favourite child. And in a way, that's what it feels like to Kai.  

"Fine. I'll take them to school, I know how important your wo-" 

"Anna, enough! You're acting like a child." Kai has stepped over the boundary now. He's waiting for her to attack back, to fight his accusations. Instead, she just sighs and takes another gulp from her coffee. A big, long gulp.  

"Elsa, I'm sorry about snapping." she says sheepishly, after a moment of silence. 

"As am I." 

"Glad we're on the same page." 

"As am I." 

Kai could see Anna's frustration as well as dust in the air. He knew she still loved her (like that), but he also knew that the two women simply don't work as a married couple. Kai saw how her body always cheated towards Elsa's, yearning for her familiar curves and scents. He saw how she egged on conversation, even though all Elsa would give her were two or three word answers. Kai knew she was trying so hard to make it work, but it just wouldn't. Maybe he should give her a little shove forward; tell her indirectly to move on.  

With the kids loaded into the truck and Anna walking towards it, Kai made his move.  

"Hey, kiddo?" 

"Yeah?" she replied, not glancing at Kai, who's perched on the front of the deck. 

"Be nice to Miss Hanley," no response. 

"She's single," he clarifies. 

Anna rolled her eyes, "What're you implying, Dad?" 

"Repopulating the Earth. Start pulling your weight, kiddo." Kai replied, a smirk sneaking its way onto his lips.  

"Start minding your own business," Anna replies, smirking back at him. 


	3. Baseball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has occurred to me that the chapter title may be a bit misleading, seeing as no actual baseball is being played in this chapter. 
> 
> Side note of the side note, apologies for the length of this chapter.

"Murphy's a great kid, yknow?" 

Anna sits back in the child-sized plastic chair, eyebrows raised and bored expression stretched across her face. She bites her tongue before saying yeah, I do know, she's only my daughter. 

"She's got a great imagination, sometimes too much, but she's still wonderful to have in class."

"Do I need to be here, because I'm pretty sure I know how great my daughter is."

Miss Hanley shoots Anna a look she can't quite decipher, and then continues, "Recently, Murph brought in this," she places a book on the desk, "book to show the class."

Anna skims the cover, then chuckles lightly, "Hey, this is my old textbook. Been wondering where it went..."

"Well, now you've found it, Mrs. Frie-"

"Call me Anna." Anna cuts her off, pushing Elsa's surfacing face back into the corners of her mind.

"Anna, I'm afraid that textbook has some outdated standards in it, as well as some misinformation. We can't have Murphy spreading the Apollo missions, for Pete's sake."

"Why not?" Anna asks, leaning forward, over the teacher's desk.

"Well, the new standards teach that the Apollo missions were just a hoax to bankrupt the Soviet Union. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, Anna, but we never went to the Moon. Murphy needs to get that through her head."

Anna is fuming. This is the bullshit she's paying her taxes for? Anna might as well homeschool both of her kids, seeing as they're learning nothing here. 

"Do you want to know something... Funny, Miss Hanley?" Anna asks, rage simmering beneath her painfully polite tone. "You see, in my version -the correct version- of history, the US went to space. And while we were up there, bankrupting the Soviet, we discovered this technology called an MRI. And you want to know what happened to that technology after your new standards were out into place? They became obsolete. Gone. Poof. It's like they were never discovered in the first place. Know why? We spent so much damn money making sure that nobody leaves this Earth and discouraging scientific process, we created a generation of people who are as dumb as posts. And you want to know something else funny? Those posts could have saved my mother if they knew how to work a damn MRI!"

Anna isn't shouting, but her voice holds the exact same level of intensity if she were. Anna's face glowing red and her hands clenched into fists. She's about ready to punch Miss Hanley, and to hell with the legality of it.

"Well, Anna, I'm sorry for your loss but we're here to talk about Murph, and possible further disciplinary measures you can perf-"

"Murphy? Oh, I've got something in mind for her."

Miss Hanley arches a (no doubt, meticulously plucked) eyebrow, "You do?"

"Yeah, I do," Anna grins. "Her favourite baseball team is playing today in the city. I think I might take her to that."

"That's not what I meant!" 

Miss Hanley calls after Anna, but the door has already slammed behind her. The woman slumps in her seat, and runs a hand through her hair. Well, she thinks to herself, I know where Murph gets it from.

* * *

 

"How'd it go, Mom?" Murph asks once Anna's hopped back into the truck.

"Well..." she starts, unsure of what to say, "I might have gotten you suspended."

Murph narrows her eyes, "What did you say?"

Anna diverts her gaze, "Might've called her as dumb as a post."

"Fair assessment, Mom. Although, you might need some scientific proof," Murph falls into Anna's accent, playfully mocking her Southern drawl.

"Got it right here," Anna holds up the textbook.

"Can I have it back? I didn't know it'd get taken away, I swear I'll be more careful!"

"Sure thing, kiddo. Can't have those posts teaching you bulls- crud."

Murph giggles at Anna's slip up, and then buries her nose into the book.

"How about that Yank game?"

Murph nods, still engrossed in the textbook.

_That's my girl_ , Anna thinks to herself.


End file.
